Trade Advertising, opinions needed - PLEASE READ

[200BHPCARS]

Hi guys,

I just recieved a PM from Mike who is part of the Mod/Admin team hear on the DC5 forum.

Just thought i would share it with you all and i have also posted my reply i sent back - Any thoughts on this??


MIKE WROTE -

Andy

We, the mods / Admin, have had some complaints from genuine forum owners, with regards to the amount of for sale related posts your business is advertising over the past weeks.

If you have cars for sale, then please only post in the for sale section, rather than in other areas of the forum.

Please note, we are currently considering the way forwards with authorized advertises, it's likely you will soon have to pay for this privilege, but under strict conditions and rules. Failure to agree to this, will see the status removed and all posts deleted etc....

These changes will allow the forum to operate more efficiently, and allow the forum to continue i.e. authorized advertises will contribute to the forum running costs ~ hosting.

Regards

Mike


MY REPLY -

Hi mike -

Thanks for the PM - I am sorry to have caused a stir by putting a potential DC5 sale in the Chat section - I wont be doing that again - My apologies.

Also - With regards to the number of posts we have made with cars for sale, i can imagine this is also causing a little frustration for Current DC5 owners who are looking to sell there cars through the forum forsale section - For this, Again please accept my apologies.

I realize myself that we have taken over the for sale section since the turn of the year and i recognize we have to reduce this to keep our profile a welcome one.

In terms of paying for the privilege of advertising on the forum - I think this is a inevitable factor that will take place on the DC5 forum - as other forums of course already run this system - so i have no complaints there (as long as its not too expensive of course!! :wink: )

If i could make a suggestion, please don’t take it the wrong way - i love the DC5 forum, its openness and simplicity are fantastic and love being a member for the info as well as the advertising.

One idea i was thinking about putting forward for the for sale section was to have 2 separate for Sale sections -

TRADE and PRIVATE - this could be applicable for both parts as well as cars..

Im sure that this would make the majority of Private sellers happy to be separated from the TRADE sale cars.
This might inevitably make our advertising a little less effective - however i believe that the welfare and best interests of the DC5 owners are paramount over our advertising needs.

What do you think of this idea??

Also, have you any preliminary costing on advertising for the Trade on the DC5 forum??

Looking forward to your reply.....

Andy
200bhpcars.com

 

[mad]

You are a sincere guy Andy. Well said mate xthumbup . I agree with your proposal about two different sections one for private and one for trade.

 

[dan the man]

FOR- 2 sections..good idea!

AGAINST- u still posting in all sections as when the time comes to sell my car im gona sh1t it against what u have for sale :!:

:lol:

 

[Ken A]

Andy you are doing potential DC5 owners a great service and great prices but on the other hand you are killing private sales for forum members.

Hence maybe a god idea to seperate private and trade sales on this forum.

 

[Suped]

Nice post Andy, for understanding guy who does indeed show respect unlike some keyboard bashers that have appeared before.

Definately support your idea in containing trade and private sales seperate. TRO have a good system as you'd know what to look at for stuff to buy.

 

[200BHPCARS]

Thanks for the responses guys -

I think most people so far are in agreement of having a trade and private section in the forsale bit.

I think this would be great for parts also, lets wait and see what mike and the other admin guys come up with.

 

[dotty]

A traders section is the way forward.

We have it on TRO and it makes life so much easier

The way we 'admin' it on TRO is by getting all the traders info (address/numbers etc).

Touch wood we have not had anyone scammed yet.

 

[SJ_Skyline]

Andy,

Thanks for your reply. The admin team are thinking this through and there are a number of options on the table, including the one you have suggested here which sounds fair to me.

What I would like to do is let this thread run for a little bit and see if there are any other suggestions that members may have that we have not yet considered.

I must stress that there are NO plans at this point to make this a pay-to-post forum for regular members.


Rich

 

[Neil_H]

They have separate private/ trade sections on GTR.co.uk as well, I think it makes sense if there's a lot of trade adverts.

 

[mikegsi]

im with the mods as to the amount of posts you have in the for sale section, as you say, you have kinda 'taken over'

as for seperate private/trader sections, i dont really think it will make a difference to the prices, we already have a different for sale/cars for sale section, i think this will suffice, as people will always flit from one to the other if we had seperate private/trade sections

im not selling my car nor do i have any plans to for the immediate future, its just our bad luck that when we bought them they were more expensive than they can be bought for now, as such we have lost a little on the resale value, though those with mods can at least re-coup some of it by selling those seperately.


one other final thought andy, im dying to see the building on the forecourt that your pics are taken on, you seem to manouvre the car round to avoid this?? surely its easier to walk round the car to take the pics rather than move the car to always get a pic of the road??

 

[DC5TU]

Agreed on the fact that, through no direct fault of your own, the prices some of your cars are going for are killing the Private sellers!!

I myself have suffered this fate after buying mine for £15.5k last feb, and having just sold it yesterday, less than 1 year later for £11k!!

That hurts!!

 

[200BHPCARS]

Andy,

Thanks for your reply. The admin team are thinking this through and there are a number of options on the table, including the one you have suggested here which sounds fair to me.

What I would like to do is let this thread run for a little bit and see if there are any other suggestions that members may have that we have not yet considered.

I must stress that there are NO plans at this point to make this a pay-to-post forum for regular members.


Rich

Ok Rich,

Thanks for the reply.

I think its a good idea to let the thread run for a while and see what the opinions of the forum users come up with.

I will change the name of the thread to attract some more ideas/opinions.

Thanks for all the comments from everyone so far also.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ref the re-sale values of the DC5's i respect everyones opinions, but it is alos a double edged sword.

Many times our fresh import values have been destroyed and forced us to stop importing certain models of cars because of owners in the UK who are selling there cars for far less than they should.

This happened with the FTO a couple of years back, also the Mitsubishi Evo 4 has fallen victem to this too. Unfortunalty some owners EXPECT to lose money on there car after a year or two of use and sell their car for far less than they could have sold it fort if they had a little patience. Others are scared or the used car sales market and advertise their car for a cheaper price to ensure a hasstle free and quick sale. The knock on effect of this is as soon as a few cheaper cars come on to the market - this changes the prices for everyone else looking to sell as they have brought the maket down.

But then again, it might just be depreciation, either way its frustrating buying a new or new ish car as you allways lose money - some more than others, depending upon when you bought and how much you paid i guess :roll:

Andy

 

[200BHPCARS]

one other final thought andy, im dying to see the building on the forecourt that your pics are taken on, you seem to manouvre the car round to avoid this?? surely its easier to walk round the car to take the pics rather than move the car to always get a pic of the road??

You just wanna spy all the other stock for sale etc!!! lol!

Seriously though our agents dealership sells cars to other traders in the UK and abroad and i dont want to be associated or mistaken to be linked with any other company - Hense why we have the road as the backdrop.

Other spots on the forecourt are reserved for other customers of our agent.

We are by far the biggest and best buyer from our agent however so we tend to get 1st choice on things such as this. My choice was the road. :roll:

I enjoy seeing whats going on.... :wink:

Andy

 

[st33ly]

Andy I think that your reply was fair and very reasonable. I do very much agree with the trade section but please be aware that Andy is attracting allot of potential new DC5 owners to the forum (Myself included.) and that should not be fround apon. This kind of selling can only help increase the awareness and reputation of the owners web site. So when future owners are looking to purchase they can see what they can get for their hard earned cash!!! Trade wise or private wise. (I know that am new to this forum but this is my point of view only!)

Regards

 

[mad]

A reasonable buyer will always do a market research before concluding from where to buy his DC5, therefore I still believe that there should be two different sections (Trade and Private), so that anyone can advertise his car either as private either as professional. This will make things easier for everyone. A forum that want to be respected should inform thoroughly its members about everything that can be relevant and be able to control the authorised advertisers. As for the price of used DC5's I belive that market establishes the fair price and the competition. At this moment GBP appreciates a lot against Yen and therefore these prices. It's not Andy's fault or anyone else.

 

[rayray]

I am with the admin/mods on this one....kinda taken over the for sale section which in time through no fault of your own, has forced the prices of private sellers down;
complete opposite to what was dealers selling the higher priced cars just before Christmas.


My suggestion would be to ask all advertisers to post Cars/Items for sale in the Dealership/Suppliers section. Currently in the Dealership/Suppliers section, you have major dealers; Sumo Power and Impulse D2 to name a few who advertise all there items for sale on there.

They do post multiple items for people to browse and chose. This stops dealers/advertisers flooding other sections that the majority of private sellers use.

This would need no forum format change and probably reduce Admin time and cost :?:

 

[mad]

It's market and the competition that makes cars cheaper. That's how cars depreciate. Everyone should understand that cars generally lose in value as times passes by and in our case it's the japanese currency that worsen things. NOTHING or NOBODY can change that!!!!!

 

[200BHPCARS]

Here is a copy of a PM i have just sent to one of the Mods/Admin staff about our proposal to tidy up things in the FORSALE section (as far as advertsing ourselves goes anyway)

Just keeping you all upto date with the thread subject.

Please have a look at the FORSALE section and see what you think of our post -

---------------------------------------

PM WRITTEN -

Hi - In response to your Pm and some of the feedback i have recieved from other DC5 forum users - i have started a new advertisng format in the FORSALE section of the site.

Please have a look -

My idea is to only have one post on the FORSALE section at one time - and simply edit the post with new stock cars as they come in to us.

In the post will be a bit of brief info about ourselves for new ITR dc5 users and then our DC5 stock will be posted below that (most recent 1st).

When we have new stock, i will simply update/edit my thread with a date on the title to let people know its a recent update.

I will also state how many DC5;s and what colours we have available in stock in the title of the the thread.

In that case, the thread will only have a breif description of each car on and only one of two photos of each car.

There will then be a link to our site www.200bhpcars.com to give propsective customers the chance to view more pics and details about the specific car they might be interested in.

this should tidy things up quite alot.

I hope you think this is OK.

Cheers

Andy
200bhpcars.com

 

[jimmy_atr]

I agree with Ray

Im not aware of any other sites that allow traders to use owners clubs so much to sell their cars without a) a traders for sale forum or b) seperate traders forum.

If people think that making traders post other than in the for sale thread will help keep prices up they they are mistaken but i think the general consensus is that 200bhpcars have overun the forum and for sale section and through no fault of their own have affected private sales.

The way forward i think is to utilise the Dealership/Traders section where cars/parts etc are all offered in there. Less admin costs, no real forum changes and sticks to the format.

A cost has to be considered as well, any other business/trade etc would pay a lot of money for the free advertising on this website. Therefore as per other sites a cost (even for the advertisers section) should be looked into. Im all for helping out new business' etc but after a while it starts to take the mikey. I mean you have to pay to advertise on autotrader, adtrader etc etc and thats not even specialists for the car you are selling :lol:

Id also like to add that as our car is rare (at the moment :roll: ) maybe something could be looked into whereby we pay for membership :?: Im not sure how this would go down with others but there are so many prospective owners who join and never post anything constructive (asking about faults, performance etc when they havent driven one) then disappear. Paying for membership will add to the rarity factor, it wont be completely off limits, i.e. for sale section, general chat etc can be open to everyone but certain parts like technical help etc etc could be only for members :?:

Anyway thats my 2p worth :arrow:

 

[dc5-2ltr]

As usual a brilliantly debated post from all sides however I think a certain Mr Matt Neal,Team Dynamics and Halfords etc should have a proportion of "blame" laid at their door :wink: Just consider ,if they hadn`t won the BTCC two years in a row who would have heard of the DC5?Obviously the massive coverage of these races showed off our car to superb effect thus prompting a lot of potetial buyers to ask about and look for imports,resulting in huge interest and increasing numbers of DC5`s in the UK. Andy at 200BHP and other companies are there to provide for these potential buyers and the financial position of the GB Pound against the Japanese Yen have resulted in greater numbers of Tegs being available at prices well down on last year.Only to be expected I suppose